Yootha Joyce

Infobox actor
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name = Yootha Joyce


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birthdate = 20 August 1927
location = Wandsworth, London, England
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deathdate = death date and age |1980|8|24|1927|8|20|df=y
deathplace = London, England
birthname = Yootha Joyce Needham
othername =
homepage =

Yootha Joyce (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980) was an English actress who was best known for playing Mildred Roper in "Man About the House" and "George and Mildred".

Early life

Yootha Joyce Needham was born in Wandsworth, London in 1927, the only child of musical parents Hurst Needham, a former concert pianist and singer Jessica Revitt. Joyce was evacuated to Hampshire during World War II. She left school at 15, then trained at RADA where Roger Moore was a fellow student and toured with Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA).

In 1956 she married the actor Glynn Edwards, best known for playing Dave, landlord of the Winchester Club in "Minder". It was through Edwards that she first came to prominence in the renowned Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop, appearing at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East in "Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be" and going on to make her film debut in 1962 in "Sparrows Can't Sing". Joyce and Edwards divorced in 1968.

Career

In the 1960s and 1970s, she became a familiar face in many one-off sitcom roles and supporting parts in films, with her first main recurring role being Miss Argyll, frustrated girlfriend of the title star Milo O'Shea in three series of "Me Mammy" (1968-71).

Her talent for comedy was also used to good effect in programmes such as "Steptoe and Son" and "On the Buses". She made appearances in the movies "A Man for All Seasons" and "Charlie Bubbles", as well as TV spin-off films "Never Mind the Quality, Feel the Width", "Nearest and Dearest" and "Steptoe and Son Ride Again". She also appeared as a customer in the pilot episode of "Open All Hours".

But it was not until 1973 that she acquired a starring role, when she was cast as man-hungry Mildred Roper, wife of landlord George, in the innovative sitcom "Man About the House". This series ran until 1976 and told the story of two young women and a young man sharing the Ropers' upstairs flat, and the sexual tension and misunderstandings such living arrangements provide.

When the series reached a natural end, a spin-off was written for the Ropers, and "George and Mildred" was first broadcast in 1976. The couple were seen moving from the London house in Middleton Terrace which they had owned in the previous programme and into a suburban semi-detached property in Peacock Crescent, Hampton Wick. Much of the new series centred on Mildred's desire to better herself in her new surroundings, but always being thwarted, usually unwittingly, by her lifeskill-lacking husband's desire for a quiet life.

Final years

The way Yootha Joyce portrayed the character of Mildred Roper, with such strong, resilient and dragon-like qualities, concealed the actress's real-life alcohol problem.

A feature film was made of "George and Mildred" in 1980, but this was to be Joyce's last work. Amidst growing concern over her health she was admitted to hospital in the summer of 1980. A sixth, and final, series of "George and Mildred" was due to be recorded later that year, but Yootha Joyce died, in hospital, of liver failure four days after her 53rd birthday on 24 August 1980. The actor Brian Murphy, who played her screen husband, George Roper, was at her bedside. She was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium.

At the inquest into her death, it was revealed that she had been drinking upwards of half a bottle of brandy a day for ten years, and that she had, in the words of her lawyer, Mario Uziell-Hamilton, become a victim of her own success and the thought of being typecast as Mildred Roper ["The Times", 16 September, 1980] .

She made her last television appearance, shown after her death, on "Max", Max Bygraves' variety show, on 14 January 1981. She sang the Carpenters song, "For All We Know". At the end of this performance, she told Bygraves, "Thanks, I enjoyed that." The actor/comedian Kenneth Williams recorded in his diary that "...she looked as though she was crying..."

In 1986, the British Band The Smiths released a single "Ask" which was adorned with a photograph in memory of Yootha Joyce.

In 2001, a tribute documentary entitled "The Unforgettable Yootha Joyce" was broadcast by ITV.

References

Selected television roles

External links

*imdb name|id=0431626|name=Yootha Joyce
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6305070 Yootha Joyce at Find-A-Grave]